Happy Friday, Spark Biters! June is Pride Month, and just as our cities are gearing up for the celebration of the diversity, freedom and triumphs of the LGBTQ2S+ communities, so too are most of these social media platforms with this week’s updates!
Instagram releases a rainbow-color ring, Pinterest enhances your search experience with a
“celebrate-yourself” theme, and Snapchat is working to integrate music in-app so you can blast it loud and proud in your stories. Let’s dive a little deeper into the social media news of the week!
Avid Instagrammers know that it’s the subtle flexes that matter. Casually taking a boomerang of a mouth-watering meal or a rooftop view from time to time, and you instantly qualify as someone who has quality #content.
You may have also noticed that the color of the circle around someone’s profile picture, which indicates that the user has posted a new story recently, also matters.
The standard purple-orange ring around someone’s profile picture appears once they’ve uploaded a story, while a green ring, viewable only by “close friends,” has you feeling like you’re in a secret society.
For Pride, Instagram will roll out a rainbow-colored story ring for stories that include a Pride-related hashtag.
This feature could also help users navigate through their feed, as it would help with identifying different types of content.
Perhaps in the future, we’ll be able to scroll through stories and understand that they’re breaking news, or part of a specific event before we even view them!
Pinterest is the organized, digital version of a scrapbook. From outfit inspirations to DIY projects and travelling hacks, the platform has increasingly become a popular place for people to search for Pride-related content year after year.
A lot of people use the platform looking for ideas, quotes, and memes to prep for the parade. In a recent article, Pinterest shares that top searches during Pride month in the past have included “pride outfit”, “pride makeup”, and “pride quotes”.
The platform also dished out that the frequency of people searching the word “pride” has seen an increase of 2930% from June 2016 to June 2018, growing jointly with the popularity of the global celebrations.
This month, when searching “Pride” on Pinterest, suggested results will light up in all colors of the rainbow.
We think this feature should stick around, don’t you?
If you’re itching to get a head start, you can also check out this curated board by Pin Picks called Pride 2019: Celebrate Yourself, which includes an array of Pride-themed hairstyles, clothes, and accessories.
Snapchat
Will dancing and lip-syncing snaps ever end? With the rise of TikTok in recent years, probably not.
The struggle of opening up your music app, going back to the Snapchat app, then making sure the song is playing on *that* specific part of the song is very real.
Snapchat is doing us all a solid with this social media update that they have in store.
The platform is currently in negotiations with big music companies such as Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group. The plan is to license song catalogs within the app so that users can include music in their posts.
No shade to Instagram, but the Spark Growth Canadian employees are just hoping this music update is going to be available in our region!
It’s been interesting seeing what the different social media platforms have done to show their love and support for Pride over the years. We hope to see more roll out as the month continues.
Until next week, Spark Biters!
